Active Member

Hi Guys, I have been away for some time but I am back!! i have been too busy watching movies and was just about to get around to putting some photos online for your comments and observations. i have just had a quick look at some of the threads and was pleased to see that some of you are still around and good old gordon is still doing his stuff. For those of you who dont know me, like many people I spent a good twelve months before dipping into the market with a dalite greyscreen, a sony vw10 and an iscan pro! I have been pleased with the result apart from the noise of the projector. It sits directly above my head in the lounge and drives me mad......anyone with any views on how to overcome this would be rewarded with a nobel peace prize nomination!

Anyway, on to the reason for my comeback! I have only yesterday changed to a Sony vw11 and have a few questions.

1. It is connected to my iscan pro as was the vw10..is there anything I should know about this?

2. I never tweaked the settings on the vw10 - I favoured the number 2preset colour option but this seems not too clever on the vw11 and the bad news is I dont like any of the factory set options.

3. I have had a quick look at the big picture Q&A and the 'smart' calibrations just do my head in! I dont possess Avia or any set up discs.....Where do idiots begin?

4. I would be eally interested to find out what settings any other vw11 owners were using for contrast, brightness, etc. I know that each environment is different but a general view of whether to increase brightness, reduce contrast, etc and to roughly what numbers would be REALLY USEFUL!!!

Guest

The 11ht has an excellent scaler and de-interlacer with its applications of DRC being- i.m.h.o. -better than the I-SCAN.

My advice ;-sell the I-SCAN.

Next,buy the Avia test disc-a must.

Once you have the Avia test disc-you can begin calibrations-with the aim being to get realistic skin tones of the LOW setting(6500k) and the punch of the custom1.

Go into the service menu by ENTER,ENTER,UP,DOWN arrows,ENTER.

Go into r.g.b.settings(gain) and note the numerical values within custom 1. write these down.

DO NOT ADJUST BIAS.

Then create your own custom-I used 4 and changed the values to the custom 1 setting then switched between custom 1 and LOW -Continually comparing to the custom 4 I was changing.(also note the original custom 4 values should you ever want to change them back.).

Once you have done this,use the Avia dvd to adjust contrast/colour etc..

This is very simple.

It is no good me giving you my settings as they are unique to my projector and vary down to the source and how you have calibrated your picture.

One tip I can give you-and you will see when you calibrate using AVIA.Is that sharpness SHOULD NOT BE ABOVE 7 for dvd watching.
Above 7 and you are blooming.

On SKYDIGITAL though i have set to 30 if the picture is soft and 21 if not so soft.

Once you have done this,the next step is a fullblown SMART calibration which involves measuring grey levels at different points of IRE and trying to achieve as close to 6500k through the grey scale.
Having said this,I have seen pictures from some SMART calibrated Sonys that look AWFUL...

Total greyscale accuracy equating to close to 6500k can produce a rather dull picture not to everyones taste.

Even after SMART calibrations with their s/ware-you would still need to tweak by eye.

Sometimes after SMART you still need a colour correcting filter to tame red push etc...

It can -as you say- get quite complicated.

But remember,the 11ht is capable of some of the best images in the world if correctly set-up.

Active Member

Thanks Doug! I have just asked my wife to turn the gas on in the oven...ready to put my head in it. I have everything going into the iscan, sky, ps2 and video firstly through my yamaha A2 amp and then via 's' to the iscan. my dvd, pioneer 737 is fed direct to the iscan via component with only the one lead going from the iscan to the projector. What would you do?

Active Member

Spaniard,
I also have the 11HT and have calibrated a quite a few projectors now.

I would stick with the setup you have, mainly because it would be a pain to change it. The deinterlacing abilities of the 11HT are very good, but there is some material where the Sil503 outperforms the 11HT's own inards. Plus, where you are using it to aggregate all your sources and send one cable to the PJ, this is a big benefit if you have a ceiling mounted PJ.

To get the best visual results from PJ, you really want to calibrate your projector using the test patterns in AVIA or V.E. If you have the experience, you can do it pretty well by eye. Otherwise SMART is an option, but still not as good as a professional calibration with a color analyser.

The ideal way for the spaniard to improve things fast,is to take the I-SCAN out of the equation,take all his sources into the amp-then component out+ s-video out to the 11ht.
Component to get the best from dvd and s-video for the other sources.

What I would say about the answers that basically say -Get an I.S.F. calibration-is that the cost of this might not be an option.

Even with a colour anaylser,which I played with last week-some of the results can be awful and produce a picture that is not to your liking.

The Sony is not difficult to improve opon-and the Spaniard-if he wants to have a go himself-armed with the requisite knowledge-will be able to improve laying out for the cost of AVIA.

Distinguished MemberAVForums Sponsor

As Doug states the video de-interlacing and scaling in the VPL11 is one of its good points. The last client I did who had a VPL11 also had a Toshiba9000 prog scan DVD player and we found it marginally better to use interlaced out to the Sony instead of the de-interlacing in the DVD.

Having said that the Sony doesn't from memory have 2:2 detection for film sourced PAL material. The Iscan has and should show obvious benefits with this sort of material (which is basically every film DVD and most television drama's or films on TV and many adverts...but I guess you aren't interested in best playback of Guiness adds...)

Once you've set greyscale the way Doug suggests you should go back and check it after setting contrast as the two are iterative. Also LCD's don't suffer blooming. This is a phenomonen of phosphor based devices. You will see a similar symptom which is I'm sure what Doug meant. IE As you increase sharpness you will actually start to loose detail as the edge enhancement wipes it out.

Also as Doug states use of a video analyser doesn't always dictate success. Sencore/Philips units for instance are incabable of reading non standard light source units like every LCD and DLP and Plasma in existence.....Units like the one I use are able to have custom calibrated files put in them to accurately read these devices.

The way that many calibrators get round this in USA is to use a simple device called an optical comparator. This is a reference light box that is at the correct colour of 6500K. To use one of these requires great skill and experience. Certainly the first time I tried it wasn't that great.

Active Member

thanks for the input Guys, i may consider selling the iscan as it seems it is surplus to requirements. At the moment I have the one lead coming from the back of the iscan which then terminates into the five inputs at the sony end, red ,green ,blue, horizontal and vertical sync. Presuming I have enough play in the lead at the iscan end , if i was to cut off the steel plug, put connectors on the red, green and blue and connect this then direct to my pioneer 737 via the component output, could I then turn the other two remaining leads into a 'S' video lead and then connect this to the 'S' output of my amp and the other end via 'S' to the Sony. Would this work? Advantages - Disadvantages? If it wouldn't then it stays as it is because I am not destroying the house again!